Selling Out The Block: Urban Renewal in Sydney

The Block in Redfern, minutes away from Sydney’s central business district. The Aboriginal flag in the centre signifies the strong presence and cultural ties of the area’s indigenous people. (Photo: Matt Smith)

Almost everyone living in Sydney knows much about Redfern and the surrounding suburbs just south of Sydney’s central business district. These inner-city neighbourhoods are not far removed from the icons of Sydney harbour: Harbour Bridge, Sydney Opera House, sun–blessed beaches.

The Block, an area lying close to the heart of Redfern, represented the first urban land rights claim of Australian Aboriginals, when the government of former Prime Minister Gough Whitlam deeded the area to the Aboriginal Housing Company (AHC) in the early 1970s. The area was occupied largely by indigenous people living in subsidised social housing.Many non–indigenous Australians perceive this area as being plagued by poverty, substance abuse, and social unrest. The 2004 riots in the area were a stark reminder of the problems between some citizens and the local police. Time Out Sydney profiled the area in 2008, questioning whether it is an ‘urban slum, Aboriginal icon, or real estate goldmine’. Only a small number of the terrace houses in the area are still inhabited, as master plans are debated and finalised. There is a conflict between how much of The Block is to be developed as private housing and how much should be allocated as affordable public housing. Local residents tied to the area’s heritage and cultural roots fight to ensure that The Block does not ultimately descend into another case of real estate speculation.

Luxury real-estate developments have come about in The Block due to city-initiated urban renewal programmes. It is an immense challenge for Sydney to ensure an adequate supply of affordable housing. High levels of property speculation have accompanied urban renewal, bringing about uneven development levels that have widened the gap between Sydney’s rich and poor demographics.In Australia, public housing subdivisions are available to the society’s disadvantaged, but demand far outweighs the supply and the developments bear poor reputations in high-crime neighbourhoods. Renewal programmes in Sydney are generally accompanied by extensive gentrification. This comes with changes in the patterns of land use in this, the former manufacturing heartland of Sydney where capital flows have since been reallocated to the real estate sector. Over time, property prices increased sharply, generating substantial capital gains for a select few of Sydney’s firms.

The problem is that market factors facilitate the speculation process, generating gains which are not beneficial to all Sydneysiders, contributing to growing social economic disadvantage and spatial inequality in an area. Variation in property prices around The Block in Redfern and reflects how prices vary significantly around public housing subdivisions in the area. Researchers have located the phenomenon outside of Australia as well, including in Virginia where each invested dollar in urban renewal increases property value between $2 – $6.

As some areas of our cities are invested in and improved upon, others are neglected and, consequently, disadvantaged neighbourhoods lie closer and closer to the more affluent areas. The disadvantaged areas around Redfern contain many high-rise public housing apartment blocks that have not benefitted from any substantial form of renewal.

Large public housing subdivisions spread across this part of Sydney lie next to trendy new developments in the area. Urban renewal programmes have exacerbated spatial inequality in adjoining neighbourhoods. (Photo: Matt Smith)

Years of urban renewal, though, has transformed Sydney’s urban landscape around public housing subdivisions. Such programmes have led to better public service provisions for the community in addition to strengthened transportation infrastructure. Other neighbourhoods in Sydney outside of The Block, however, do not suffer from the notorious history of poverty and urban decay.

Major Public Housing Concentrations across Redfern, Darlington, Surry HillsData: NSW Department of Housing

The existence of spatially dispersed public housing across this part of Sydney is an example of how urban renewal transforms the fabric of our cities. Government planning authorities have implemented a range of strategies facilitating investment with the broad objective of increasing urban amenity in these areas.

Sydney desperately requires efforts to curb property speculation through extensive policy reform. In Australia, the federal government has massively subsidised property owners through negative gearing policies that have helped maintain unsustainably high property values. Real estate investors can offset the difference between what they gain in income from the property and what the repayments are on their mortgages as a tax deduction. Calls to abolish negative gearing bring about significant resistance.

For the moment, The Block in Redfern is still viewed as a slum, icon, or a goldmine. Yes, urban renewal programmes have brought about much needed transformation to many places in this part of Sydney. For now, The Block is an area that reflects an opportunity for stakeholders to do what is needed to develop a better future for Sydney. Good city planning ensures that communities can be integrated, and that heritage and cultural areas lie at the top of the planning agenda. Feagin highlights that property speculation unnecessarily creates uneven development in our cities. The planning system in Sydney has yet to recognise the way in which market factors alter the housing market in response to urban renewal. A better future for Sydney will only happen through better stakeholder dialogue and policy reforms, which counteract spatial inequality by ensuring that neighbourhoods are diverse and as liveable as possible.

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Matt is a graduate in commerce and geography from the Australian National University. Based in Sydney, Australia Matt is working as a GIS software consultant specialising in spatial and demographic analysis.
Matt's writing focuses on urban form, renewal programs, placemaking and transport planning in the Asia - Pacific region

13 Comments

I lived in the block as a gap year traveller in 2005.
It was a crazy place to live and due to living with a few dozen Irish blokes in a small tenant house. Many locals thought we were IRA… Anyways,
Even though I was there only for a month Redfern seemed to always be talked about within the newspapers in regards to development. (The riots were never mentioned, in fact I did not even know about them until a few months after)

Like many other run down areas within major cities around the world, the block could develop into a bohemian cultural centre. This means not having developers coming into create flash apartments that no one from the area could afford, but coming in to aid the local community in boosting the area via employment, art and culture.

This does have its own problems as the continuation of cheap accommedation would pull in non-Aboriginal people, thus losing its already defined culture. and then this could make house prices rise.

Urban planning on a govenmental level, always misses out the point to do with an areas socieity or culture; instead there focus on the obvious (and boring bits) like buildings and infrastructre.

Thanks for your comment Simon !! Really well put in terms of urban planning failing to focus on society and culture. I believe this comes as a result of urban renewal programs which encourage landowners and investors to undertake speculative activity in the property market. Feagin’s article which I provided a link to emphasises the subsequent ‘hopscotch’ or uneven development highlights what happens as a result of this. Its hard to find articles or literature on property speculation as governments won’t admit that a large proportion of redeveloped property won’t be affordable to a lot of people. But negative gearing policies only make this worse.

Its interesting how in western culture we think of an area being ‘hip and trendy’ in a mainstream context, often ignoring the cultural roots and origins of people in the area. Thus infrastructure and buildings seem to be the focus of redevelopment. Urban renewal which has occured beyond ‘the block’ makes the greater part of Redfern look similiar to elsewhere in Inner city Sydney.

But one step in the right direction for ‘the block’ to become more of a cultural centre would be for the government to redefine what it means by affordable housing policy. Yes, a large proportion of newly redveloped housing should be offered initally to aboriginal people. In addition to this, housing subsidies should be varied in this area to encourage a more diverse community. For example, accommodating students, creative types and low income earners would help lessen the extent of spatial polarisation. Sadly the aboriginal population has been declining and isn’t represented like it is remote and regional Australia (or Alice Springs / Darwin). Doing whatever we can to make the area as diverse and liveable as possible needs to be the immediate prority. Urban renewal programs typically bring in the yuppie types who often are the few that can afford to move to gentrified areas !! Diversity should at least encourage a more creative economy

I would be worried, though, as to how much that idea of offering housing in the area to Aboriginals first gets going those scholars that focus on racial concentration to go nuts and wrongly refer to the phenomenon as segregation.

For sure. But stakeholders can always overlook the voice of the aboriginal people in this context and can go about promoting that the land should be redeveloped in the way they want. Big business and some arms of government have always just thought of the block as prime real estate and sat on their hands waiting to get what they wanted into the redevelopment proposals. I guess its a difficult call to balance who exactly gets the largest provision of affordable housing in this area which I why I highlighted the need to make neighbourhoods as ‘diverse and liveable as possible’. Such needs to be the focus of tackling property speculation and spatial inequality which has arisen in response to the urban renewal.

Check out the link to the brief overview of the proposed redevelopment of ‘the block’ on the protocity facebook page. So what does this all come to in the eyes of the real estate sector ? Reiventing the area for ‘new kids, students and artists’ haha

I actually am not even talking (nor would I ever advocate) overlooking Aboriginal peoples. I’m from Vancouver, a city in a similar situation as Sydney in that regard. There are issues of poverty and substandard buildings constructed by the federal government, which are shameful.

I more just have a problem with those in the academy bandying about a term like ‘segregation’: it means something very specific, in a very specific context, in the very language that it’s being used in. What is often referred to as segregation (excepting, of course, the United States pre-Civil Rights, South Africa, and Europe under Nazi occupation) is not actually segregation. It’s a semantic bone that I’m picking, but it’s an important one.

Sometimes urban renewal is a curtain to hide things. If you gain million dolars from “certain kind of political-economical actions” (corrupted governments) you would need to turn that money once into housing units. You would say “we are producing social housings” but you sell those houses (vertical cemetaries i call them) to the ideological relatives of your political party. Constructors, advertising companies of the 10.000 units urban sites and all kinds of stakeholders would be your “political relatives”. Thus, urban renewal is not always renewal, especially for todays capitalist “so called liberal” world. Keyword: TOKI. (just google)

I really liked your article on the block and might reference some of it in an essay I’m writing. Also I was in Sydney for about 10 months , got back to the UK in May. I really liked Redfern , especially the community centre near the station , hope to get back in the not too distant future. Its sad to here about the community facing trouble with the redevlopment.

Urban renewal is impacting large parts of London currently and the changes have been presented as economic benefits to the local community as they will bring in jobs, investment etc but the problem is it transforms neighbourhoods with a low income population into gentrified territories , abundant with consumerism and very little public space or space with solely social functions. It is often followed by an economic displacement of some of the poor who cannot afford to live there anymor.
There is often community opposition but sometimes communities are divided and furthermore it is easy to co opt or coerce people through speculatory practices, stressing the so called benefits or scaring people through inter place competition.

I wonder if gentrfication is beneficial? I ahve been reading about mixed income neighbourhoods in Chicago where there has been apparent access of facilities which “poor” people did not have access to before e.g. better schools. However it has also resulted in people having to modify their behavious to accomodate middle class sensibilities e.g. no loitering or loud music. I am sceptical of the benefits.
When I read about planning frame works in the UK and other parts of the world the language seems very oriented toward community interests but the results of the planning process are often not so. I am not sure how to ground planning for redevelopment in social needs over comercial interests. It is hard to do this in an over arching system which is driven by investing for the sake of profit.
Do you think there are any positive aspects around the redevelopment of the Block?

Cheers Pratichi. You probably saw that there are some good references inserted as hyperlinks throughout the article also. The biggest problem we are seeing with gentrification / urban renewal programs is the process of uneven development which speculative activity brings about in property markets. You touched on this perfectly by highlighting that such ‘gentrified territories’ limit the provision of public / social space. I did mention in article that urban renewal has improved some community and transport infrastructure (redfern community centre is a good example of this). I agree totally that planning systems are driven by investing for the sake of profit rather thab community interest, and therefore these problems remain unrecognisable to the system itself. There are some scholars which say that urban consolidation counteracts the provision of affordable housing all together, as the supply of land is restricted and push up land values. I believe that there could be a few potential aspects around the redevelopment of ‘the block’. There is the opportunity for further provision of affordable housing if authorities act by working to counteract the urban decay which faced the original indigenous occupants. Lower cost housing could also be developed if partnerships were developed to develop student housing close major universities etc. This kind of urban renewal will bring benefits if handled correctly and does not pose challenges that greenfield programs do. Zetland in Sydney and Docklands in Melbourne at times on the other hand have struggled with unreliable transport and community infrastructure such as schools.

Aboriginies were give nice Terrace Houses by Gough and look how they ended up. They should not be allowed in this new development. It should only be for people who are interested in working and looking after their units not people who want to smash them and rob people. You could give them Mansions at Point Piper and they would turn into a slum within a week.

Also they were not given “nice” terrace houses. The houses were dilapidated and were actually refurbished by the Aboriginal community with the help of the builders union. And it is not so easy to maintain a house when you are faced with unemployment and social problems often reflective of poverty and marginalisation.

[…] I am only too familiar with how urban renewal programs / gentrification have created spatial inequality around inner city neighbourhoods in Sydney. For those of you who haven’t read my contribution at theprotocity.com […]

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